Causes: Mental Health, Mental Health Treatment

Mission: To provide public benefit through helping people develop skills, motivation, and resources to become productive members of society; healthy in body, mind, and spirit.

Programs: Children's mental health service - the program offers a wide range of mental health services for children with emotional and behavioral problems. These services are provided at three primary sites throughout the northern tulare county service area: visalia youth services (vys), dinuba children's services (dcs) and sequoia youth services (sys) (with satellite offices in farmersville and woodlake). Services are also provided at most of the school sites in the rural communities of northern tulare county. Accomplishments include the provision of outpatient mental health services to 3,024 children this year. The use of evidence based treatment helped keep all but a few of these children in school, at home and out of trouble. Also through these services and the services of the county mental health department and other agencies in the county, child mental health hospitalization rates are consistently well below the statewide average. Our many other mental health programs also provide a broad array of services that have helped reduce homelessness, increase employment, reduce incarceration and increase stabilization for mentally ill members of the many communities the agency serves.

homes for developmentally disabled children who would be placed in a state developmental hospital if not for the services of our homes - the organization currently operates 2 short-term intensive therapeutic homes; one in atascadero and another in ukiah, and four long-term intensive therapeutic homes; two in ukiah, one in paso robles and one in porterville. The organization's long-term therapeutic homes continue to offer these children a longer positive behavioral support model in order to transition residents into a life-long home-like environment. At this stage of the process, these homes support the children in their journey and provide a strength-based sounding board for the children to continue their successful adaptations. All of these therapeutic homes continue to have successful outcomes and to support children who are faced with complex issues. The primary objective is for these children to remain out of the costly state developmental hospital system and continue in the least restrictive care options appropriate for their needs. The tremendous accomplishment of these homes this year is that 98 percent of the children served did not have to be placed in a state hospital.

the bakersfield reentry program in kern county is a 125-bed capacity facility serving offenders from the state, county and federal criminal justice systems to facilitate reintegration into society. Since 1983 the goal has been to provide essential programming necessary for a client to become self-supporting upon completion of the program. A 90 day program for parolees is provided for those referred to the program by parole agents. Residential reentry center (rrc) services are provided for referrals from the federal bureau of prisons and federal court systems. Clients attend classes focusing on various topics to improve their life skills and employability and are assessed to determine specific programming needs, with individual treatment plans created as necessary, to ensure the maximum benefit of the program. Services include drug testing, substance abuse counseling and mental health counseling. Fy 2013-2014, the program provided services to over 675 clients.

in other areas of program service accomplishment, the community corrections, substance abuse treatment, family housing, employment services, payee services, aftercare services and other ancillary service departments provided needed services for thousands of people. The organization's community corrections, substance abuse treatment and housing programs typically have over 1,100 people in residence receiving services. The organization's outpatient programs for youth and adults typically serve over 9,000 people per year.